The XRP network fee — also called the transaction cost — is the minimum amount of XRP required to submit a transaction to the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The current standard fee is 0.00001 XRP (10 drops), equivalent to less than $0.0002 USD at current market prices.
Unlike most blockchains, XRP fees are not paid to validators or miners. Instead, they are permanently destroyed (burned), protecting the network from spam and creating a mild deflationary pressure on XRP supply.
The XRP Ledger uses a consensus protocol rather than Proof of Work or Proof of Stake. This fundamental design choice is why transaction costs can remain so low — there are no block rewards or miner incentives driving fees upward.
How the Fee Burn Mechanism Works
Every XRP transaction specifies a Fee field in its signed data. When the transaction is included in a validated ledger, that exact amount of XRP is destroyed — not redistributed. This burn mechanism:
- Prevents spam attacks on the peer-to-peer network
- Ensures fees scale with network load via an exponential curve
- Slightly reduces total XRP supply over time
- Keeps the ledger clean and efficient for all participants
Because fees are burned rather than paid to any party, the XRPL has no economic incentive to keep fees high. The result is a network where sending $1 million costs the same as sending $1 — fractions of a cent.